BAGHDAD, 31 October 2003 — More aid workers left Iraq yesterday as saboteurs brought a trainload of US Army supplies to a fiery halt and an explosion in the capital Baghdad killed at least two people.
The United Nations pulled staff out of Baghdad and international aid agencies debated whether they could continue operating in the face of a wave of bomb attacks and persistent lawlessness.
A UN spokeswoman in Geneva said foreign staff in Baghdad were leaving Iraq for talks on security, following Monday’s bomb attack on the International Committee of the Red Cross which killed 12 people including two ICRC guards.
“We have asked Baghdad staff to come out temporarily for consultations with people from headquarters on the future of our operation,” spokeswoman Marie Heuze said.
She said the talks would focus on the security arrangements that “we would need to take to operate in Iraq.”
Most foreign staff had already been pulled out following a suicide truck bomb attack on the UN headquarters in Baghdad in August which killed 22 people, including head of mission Sergio Vieira de Mello. Since then, UN programs have been run mostly by Iraqi staff. An explosion shook Baghdad’s old quarter late yesterday, killing two people and triggering a large fire. Soon after, two bombs detonated in the north of the capital next to a US military police patrol, injured two soldiers, an American officer said.
Maj. Scott Patten said the explosive devices had been concealed on the edge of the highway near the US base at Al-Muthana airport. The road was closed as sappers searched for any remaining bombs.
In central Baghdad, an Iraqi police officer said that an explosive device, possibly a box packed with TNT, had detonated next to a printing shop located near the intersection of Rashid Street and Al-Motanabi Street. But the US military said they were investigating the possibility that a propane tank had blown up inside the building.
The dead included a tea seller who owned a stall near the site, police and witnesses said. At least four other people were wounded.
Firefighters and two fire engine sought to control the blaze that engulfed the building in an area known for its rows of bookshops and antique stores. Debris and broken glass littered the sidewalks. US soldiers and Iraqi policemen blocked off the area and pushed away hundreds of onlookers as helicopters flew overhead.
In another sign of the instability plaguing the country, the toll of US soldiers killed in action since major combat was declared over on May 1 this week surpassed the number killed in combat during the war that toppled Saddam.
Since the start of May, guerrilla attacks have killed 117 US soldiers. According to the latest Pentagon figures, 114 were killed during the war in March and April.
The police were targeted again yesterday, when officers intercepted a motorist who tried to toss a hand grenade into a police station on the edge of Baghdad’s heavily guarded “green zone,” headquarters enclave for the US occupation.
One leaflet on the streets, purporting to be from the deposed Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, called for a general strike Saturday through Monday “to prove to our enemy that we are a united people.”
The plainly typed flyer will further feed the debate over the identity of the shadowy underground of bombers terrorizing Iraqi cities and ambush teams harassing US forces.
The identity of those swarming over the sabotaged train yesterday was clear: Ordinary Iraqis from the Fallujah area, 60 km (35 miles) west of Baghdad, who fell upon the crippled train to loot it of computers, tents, bottled water and other US Army supplies.
— Additional input from agencies
